one had habitually cheap air max shoes breathed air there were times when anything less crystalline THE PAPERS HE HAD retired to read did not tell him much but they plunged him into an atmosphere and spluttered. They consisted mainly of an exchange between Count Olenski's solicitors and a French legal firm to whom the Countess had applied for the settlement her financial situation. There replica Tiffany was also a short letter from Count to his wife: after reading it, Newland Archer rose, jammed the papers back into their envelope, and reentered Mr. Letterblair's office. "Here are the letters, sir. If you wish, I'll see Madame Olenska," he said in a constrained voice. "Thank you—thank you, Mr. Archer. Come and dine with me tonight if you're free, and we'll go into the matter afterward: in case you wish to call on our client tomorrow." Newland Archer walked straight home again that afternoon. It was a winter evening of transparent clearness, with an innocent young moon above the house-tops; and he wanted to fill his soul's lungs with the pure radiance, and not exchange a 67 The Age of Innocence word with any one till he and Letterblair were closeted together after dinner. It was impossible to decide otherwise than he had done: he must see Madame than let her secrets be bared to other eyes. compassio jewelry shop n had swept away his indifference and impatience: she stood before him as an exposed and pitiful saved at all costs from farther wounding herself in plunges against fate. He remembered what she had told him of Mrs. Welland's request to be spared whatever was "unpleasant" in her history, and winced at the thought that it was perhaps this attitude of mind which kept the New York air so pure. "Are we only Pharisees after all?" he wondered, puzzled by the effort to reconcile his instinctive disgust at human vileness with his equally instinctive pity for human frailty. For the first time he perceived how elementary his own principles had always been. He passed for a young man who had not been afraid of risks, and he knew that his secret love-affair with poor silly Mrs. Thorley Rushworth had not been too secret to invest him with a becoming air of adventure. But Mrs. Rushworth was "that kind of woman"; foolish, vain, clandes tine by nature, and far more of the affair than by such charms and qualities When the fact dawned on him it nearly now it seemed the redeeming feature in short, had been of the kind that most of the age had been through, and emerged from with calm consciences and an undisturbed belief in the abysmal distinction the women one loved and respected and those one enjoyed— and pitied. In this view they were sedulously abetted by mothers, aunts and other elderly female relatives, who all shared Mrs. Archer's belief that when "such things happened" it was undoubtedly foolish of the man, but somehow always criminal of the woman. All the elderly ladies whom Archer knew regarded any woman who loved imprudently as necessarily unscrupulous and designing, and mere simple-minded man as powerless in her clutches. The only thing to do was to persuade him, as early as possible, to marry a nice girl, and then trust to her to look after him. In the complicated old European communities, Archer began to guess, love-problems might be less simple and less easily classified. Rich and idle and ornamental societies must pro 68 Edith Wharton duce many more such situations; which a woman naturally sensitive force of circumstances, from sheer be drawn into a tie inexcusable On reaching home he wrote a line to the Countess asking at what hour of the next day she could despatched it by a messenger-boy, who returned presently with a word nike air max outlet to the effect that she was going to Skuytercliff the next morning to stay over Sunday with the van der Luydens, but that he would find her alone that evening after dinner. The note was written on a rather untidy half-sheet, without date or address, but her hand was firm and free. He was amused at the idea of her week-ending in the stately solitude of Skuytercliff, but immediately afterward felt that there, of all places, she would most feel the chill of minds rigorously averted from the "unpleasant." HE WAS AT MR. LETTERBLAIR'S punctually at seven, glad of the pretext for excusing himself soon after dinner. He had formed his own opinion from the papers entrusted to him, and did not especially want to go into the matter with his senior partner. Mr. Letterblair was a widower, and they dined alone, copiously and slowly, in a dark shabby room hung prints of "The Death of Chatham" Napoleon." On the sideboard, between cases, stood a decanter of Haut Brion, and Lanning port (the gift of a client), which the Lanning had sold off a year or two before his mysterious and discreditable death in San Francisco—an incident less publicly to the family than the sale of the cellar. After a velvety oyster soup came shad and cucumbers, then a young broiled turkey with corn fritters, followed by a canvas- back with currant jelly and a cele tiffany and co bracelet ry mayonnaise. Mr. Letterblair, who lunched on a sandwich and tea, dined deliberately and deeply, and insisted on his guest's doing the same. Finally, when the closing rites had been accomplished, the cloth was removed, cigars were lit, and Mr. Letterblair, leaning back in his chair and pushing the port westward, said, spreading his back agreeably to the coal fire behind him: "The whole family are against a divorce. And I think rightly." Archer instantly felt himself on the other side of the argument. "But why, sir? If there ever was a case—" 69 The Age of Innocence " Well—what's the use? She's here—he's there; the Atlantic's between them. She'll never get than what he's voluntarily returned to her: their marriage settlements take precious things go over there, Olenski's acted generously: he might have turned her out without a penny." The young man knew this and was silent. "I understand, though," Mr. Letterblair continued, "that she attaches no importance to the money. Therefore, as the family say, why not let well enough alone?" Archer had gone to the house an hour earlier in full agreement Fake Tiffany with Mr. tiffany jewelry sale Letterblair's view; but put into words by this selfish, well-fed and supremely indifferent old man it suddenly became the Pharisaic voice of a society wholly absorbed in barricading itself against the unpleasant. "I think that's for her to decide." "H'm—have you considered the consequences if she decides for divorce?" "You mean the threat in her husband's letter? What weight would that carry? It's no more than where can you buy tiffany jewelry the vague charge of an angry blackguard." " Yes; but it might make some defends the suit." "Unpleasant—!" said Archer explosively. Mr. Letterblair looked at him from under and the young man, aware of the uselessness what was in his mind, bowed acquiescently continued: "Divorce is always unpleasant." "You agree with me?" Mr. Letterblair resumed, after a waiting silence. "Naturally," said Archer. " Well, then, I may count on you; the Mingotts may count on you; to use your influence against the idea?" Archer hesitated. "I can't pledge myself till I've seen the Countess Olenska," he said at length. "Mr. Archer, I don't understand you. Do you want to marry into a family with a scandalous divorce-suit hanging over it?" "I don't think that has anything to do with the case." Mr. Letterblair put down his glass of port and fixed on his young partner a cautious and apprehensive copies Tiffany gaze. Archer understood that he ran the risk of having his mandate withdrawn, and for some obscure reason he disliked the pros 70 Edith Wharton pect. Now that the job tiffany and co bracelet had propose to relinquish it; and, to he saw that he must reassure the unimaginative was the legal conscience of the Mingotts. "You may be sure, sir, that I shan't commit myself till I've reported to you; what I meant was that I'd antique tiffany jewelry rather opinion till I've heard what Madame Olenska has Mr. Letterblair nodded approvingly at an excess of caution worthy of the best New York tradit antique tiffany jewelry ion, and the young man, glancing at his watc tiffany and co bracelet h, pleaded an engagement cheap nike air max shoes and took leave. XII. OLD- FASHIONED NEW YORK dined at seven, and the habit of after-dinner calls, though derided in Archer's set, still generally prevailed. As the young man strolled up Fifth Avenue from Waverley Place, the long thoroughfare was deserted but for a group of carriages standing before the Reggie Chiverses' (where there was a dinner for the Duke), and the occasional figure of an elderly gentleman in heavy overcoat and muffler ascending a brownstone doorstep and disappearing int tiffany and co jewelry o a gas- lit hall. Thus, as Archer crossed Square, he remarked that old Mr. du Lac was calling on his cousins Dagonets, and turning down the corner Tenth Street he saw Mr. Skipworth, of his own firm, obviously visit to the Miss Lannings. A little farther Beaufort appeared on his doorstep, darkly projected a blaze of light, descended to his priv costume jewellery ate brougham, away to a mysterious and probably unmentionable destination. It was not an Opera night, and no one was giving a so that Beaufort's outing was undoubtedly of a clandestine nature. Archer connected it in his mind with a little house beyond Lexington Avenue in which beribboned window curtains and flower-boxes had recently appeared, and before whose newly painted door the canary-coloured brougham of Miss Fanny Ring was frequently seen to wait. Beyond the small and slippery pyramid which composed Mrs. Archer's world lay the almost unmapped quarter inhabited by artists, musicians and "people who wrote." These scattered fragments of humanity had never shown any desire to be amalgamated with the social structure. In spite of odd ways they were said to be, for the most part, quite respectable; but 71 [www.jewelrycouk.org] The Age of Innocence they preferred to keep to themselves. prosperous days, had inaugurated soon died out owing to the reluctance it. Others had made the same attempt, and there of Blenkers—an intense and voluble mother, and three